What Breaks Us
by Sincynati
Summary: Death. So many ways to describe it. Simply put, however, as what breaks us.


Happy Halloween, all! Kinda appropriate for this story, really- thus I don't feel THAT bad about it coming out two or three months late. ^^' So, yes, I did the finishing touches on this in my not-so-freaky costume, rushing to the door every three minutes, watching Clue, and sneaking candy. Fun fun:)

This is for the Poll I had up a while ago, for which two characters I should make a one-shot with. Hopefully, this meets all your expectations. If it does not, please tell me so I can make it better or do whatever you want:)

Hope you enjoy!

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**What Breaks Us**

"There's another world inside of me that you may never see, there are secrets in this life I can't hide. Somewhere in this darkness there is a light that I can't find- maybe it's too far away, maybe I'm just to blind." - Three Doors Down

**.**

The edges were worn from constant use, the corners rounded from being pulled and pried. The paper was thin from when it had been washed in the sink by a naive six-year-old, and the edges were adorned with small rips and tears.

It wasn't what you would consider an important document- indeed, the average person would probably laugh at the poorly-drawn stick figures. To Iruka, however, it meant the world.

He remembered Naruto presenting this picture to him- a happy, filthy, and hopeful six-year-old, with dirt on his cheeks and sticky, grubby fingers that still held the broken crayons. The picture waving about in his hand, his happy exclamation of "Look, sensei, look!"

Gone.

Because, now, he wasn't a child any more. In fact, he had just turned twenty. He wasn't alive and happy anymore- no, he was still, cold. Torn to pieces somewhere, very much dead.

Gone. Forever.

Iruka allowed the paper to slip from his hands and land on the floor with a flutter.

He hadn't cried, yet. He wasn't going to. Because, now, he needed to be strong. For the friends. The family.

For Naruto.

But Iruka had been Naruto's family- the only member for the longest time. He knew more about Naruto then Naruto knew himself.

Now, Naruto was- had been- married, to a sweet girl and had an father-in-law and sister-in-law, and bucket loads of cousins and aunts and uncles. He had a real family, for reunions and for a place to go to on Holidays. Iruka wasn't part of that.

But now, Iruka was placed in the role of being the father of the dead, in the awkward position were he was more related to him than Naruto's new family ever would be. He was in charge of the arrangements, of what would happen afterwords. The two different families drifted away from each other, the only thing tying them together now lost.

He didn't mind, a whole lot. After all, he never had a huge family like that anyway. Just him and Naruto.

But now there was no more Naruto.

No more anything.

He shook his head. He was alive. He had his academy, and his few scattered friends here and there.

It didn't make up for the big piece that was missing.

He sighed, filling up the empty apartment with his breath. His grey bedsheets rumpled around him from him not bothering to make it, broken glass and clay laid by his feet from his early tantrum.

How were you supposed to handle the death of a son?

He could hear the clock ticking on the wall, counting down the minutes until the funeral started. He couldn't be late.

Tiredly, he pushed himself up from his bed. He felt as though he was a thousand years old, and could never walk again. He ran his fingers through his hair and pulled it up tightly. With another long sigh, Iruka opened the apartment door and walked outside, where the drizzling rain tried to drown him and the grey clouds threatened to suffocate him.

It didn't matter. Iruka was already breaking.

#

Kakashi had known the pain of losing someone close to him before, of seeing it happen before his very eyes. His teammates. His teacher. His father, his mother, his friends.

Pain. Because he knew that pain, it gave proof that he, the great Hatake Kakashi, actually had a heart.

One of the greatest of shinobi rules was that ninja do not have emotional attachments. Do not feel emotion, do not show emotion. It was required of shinobi not to be human. And it would constantly disappoint Kakashi that he failed in being a shinobi, but excelled at the art of being human.

When he first met his genin team, he tried not to grow attached to them. Tried so so hard. Tried to hate them, even, for being so much like his old team. But he couldn't. He grew bonds that still were held close, foolishly, stupidly.

He had once thought that Cell Seven and he could accomplish anything, everything together. He had once- stupidly, foolishly- thought that they could easily become the next group of Sannin- all working together, for the name of Konoha.

He was wrong.

Sasuke... Sasuke had shunned the village, turned his back on his comrades, and left Konoha, never to look back. He now hated everything Kakashi stood for, and even now was trying to destroy it. And now, he had done the unthinkable... he had...

Naruto...

Kakashi shuffled his feet in front of the gravestone, moved his hands to his pockets. The ice-cold rain hit against him like stabbing knives.

Dead.

_This is why... this is why we can't form bonds._

Kakashi looked up into the sky, letting the rain beat against his face.

_Because it's too hard. It's could break you, watching your friends die. Over and over and over again. And once you're broken, there is no use for you as a shinobi. You become useless, worse than a civilian. A broken tool that can't be mended._

Lightning struck the sky, electrifying the clouds. Thunder boomed behind it.

Life isn't done the easy way, Kakashi thought, reaching forward to the tombstone, tracing the names of his killed comrades.

Bonds. It takes so long for them to be created, but yet how quickly they can be severed.

His finger lingered over the newest engraving of his old student. Closer than a student, really. They were friends. Had been, that is. They had been friends.

Before he died. In front of Kakashi's eyes. But he still couldn't do anything, still couldn't help.

In less than a minute, it had become Kakashi's responsibility to tell the rest of Konoha that Naruto, one of his last precious people, had died.

#

Flowers.

Iruka held one, now. Standing in line to lay it by Naruto's picture. In the picture, Naruto was standing still, smiling broadly. It was all wrong. It didn't capture who Naruto really was.

They shouldn't have placed his Bingo Book picture there to represent Naruto- all that did was show he was a ninja. Congratulations- they already knew that.

The line moved ahead. Iruka clenched the flower in his hand tightly.

No, it should have been a picture of him, Naruto, not the shinobi. He could never stand to be still and smile for the camera as you please- he always had to be moving. Pictures that others would try to snap always came out blurry, with him doing something. He never sitting on a stool, smiling like he was actually a responsible adult. He never, never liked to sit and wait. Never liked to be still.

Iruka felt tears threaten to fall for the first time. Now Naruto was still, somewhere. Unmoving, never to accomplish anything again.

As Iruka carefully placed the flower on top of the many others toppled onto the table, he knew what picture should go represent him- or, at least, the one Iruka would always see as Naruto. The one he had drawn, so many years ago, of a father and son. Sloppy, messy stick figures that stated more honesty than the camera could ever hope to grasp.

Because, in the carefully drawn circle heads and in the hideous beauty of it, Naruto had drawn what he had believed was himself- a lost, little boy who had just discovered love- and what he believed was Iruka, the father would give him ramen to scare his fears away.

#

Kakashi couldn't help but notice how quickly the funeral emptied out. Only Naruto's closest friends were left now, chatting in small groups, some of them crying, some of them not.

He found himself next to Iruka, weirdly enough. The two men had absolutely nothing in common- except Naruto. And now, there wasn't even that.

A silence grew between them as they watched the younger people move about. Showing his picture around, sharing memories.

"It shouldn't be like this," Iruka said quietly.

Kakashi looked over at the chuunin. What shouldn't be like this? Were the flowers wrong, or was it some tradition Kakashi was forgetting about?

Iruka caught Kakashi's glance. "I mean... I-I just wish he wasn't dead."

"It can't be helped," was Kakashi's cold, seemingly uncaring reply.

"But maybe..." Iruka closed his eyes, remembering. A laugh right when Iruka needed one, a picture on the refrigerator...

"The past is the past, it can't be changed," Kakashi leaned back as much as gravity would allow while standing, trying to look like he didn't care.

A long silence passed between them. The rain earlier had not yet dried, puddles still scattered around them. The clouds hadn't moved, they just grew darker and darker.

Like Iruka's heart.

"I know how much you meant to him," Iruka paused for a moment. "Thank you."

Kakashi looked at the younger shinobi, surprised.

"He... you..." Iruka sighed. Nothing was coming out right. "Thank you. "

_Thank you? Thank you? For what? Standing around while Naruto got beaten to a pulp? Thank you for not preventing it, for raising and encouraging a team that was already divided?_

_No, Kakashi,_ he warned himself. _No emotion. Don't get worked up... it won't help_.

"Really, Iruka, you should be the one to thank. You practically raised the boy."

Iruka laughed softly. "Yeah, well, he adopted me, in a sense." Another silence took place. "I didn't... teach him everything he needed. After all..." Iruka bit his lip. No. Not now.

"It's not your fault," Kakashi told him, "you haven't been his teacher since he graduated. You weren't even there when he died."

That was true. But it was also another blow to Iruka. Why wasn't he there? His last mission before he became Hokage... he should of been there. It wasn't even a A-rank- just a simple retrieval. Iruka could have gone, all he needed to do was ask.

The dark rainclouds still loomed above, the smell of rain lingered in the air. Shadows weaved around the groups of people, re-coloring the field with grey and black.

Kakashi didn't know what else to say. He could tell that Iruka was distraught- rightfully so- and Kakashi wished there was something he could say to cheer the sensei up.

It was better that he didn't, though, Kakashi decided. Iruka didn't know the whole story, and Kakashi wasn't about to even remotely place himself in a position to tell him.

Even if he wanted to remember everything that had happened, it would only just remind Kakashi about how miserably he failed. Like so many other times... with Obito. Rin. Minato.

Ties. Bonds. That's what everything boils down to, in the end. Who you know, what you know. Who you'd live for- who you would die for. And that's why it was better to live without these ties, because in the end, they will only be broken.

With a glance at Iruka, Kakashi could tell that he was already breaking. It wasn't obvious- Iruka knew how to hide it well. You can't be a teacher if you're going to spazz out on your class. But he had been breaking for a long time, without ever being mended. He wouldn't be able to last much longer.

Apparently nobody had ever told Iruka that emotional bonds were unwise- he created one with all of his students, only to watch them die. Over. And over. And over. Again. These little pieces of his heart that would one day never came back...

It was no secret that Naruto had the biggest piece. And now that Naruto wasn't coming back, Kakashi wasn't sure what could hold his heart together.

They stayed there, in the field. Standing next to each other as thunder boomed from the heavens and started sprinkling upon them. Until the last of the pictures were packed and put away, until the last of the people had were leaving. Iruka could vaguely hear people asking him, "Sensei, are you coming?" "Are you alright, Sensei?" but he just smiled and said he would be right along.

The rain poured harder and hard, daring them to move. And they finally did. Kakashi glanced at the sensei, and then stuck his hands in his pockets and walked on his way.

#

Iruka stayed a moment longer. The fierce wind had scattered various amounts of litter, and was brushing against the tree tops. The flowers people forgot to collect littered the field, covering it with specks of white.

Naruto would have appreciated the site. He would have laughed... his off-beat, cocky little laugh, and then immediately would have set out to play in it- destroying it, rushing around like a moron, gloating over how pretty it looked while his feet smashed them to smithereens.

Iruka leaned down and picked up one of the stray flowers by his foot. Then another, and then another.

This was all that was left of Naruto, besides pictures and honors. All that would remain.

#

Iruka would go to the memorial stone at night. The mornings were too busy, too loud. At night, he could give his full attention and pray. At night, there were no distractions, like students calling him or noisy pedestrians looking for a shortcut. At night, the only thing there with him were the crickets and other nocturnal animals.

During his time at the memorial stone, they seemed like the only other things alive.

This night was the same.

The air was muggy from the earlier rain, and the puddles still had not dried. Scattered about, surrounding him. Little lakes of water.

He felt a presence appear behind him. Moving, breathing. Alive.

"What are you doing out so late, Kakashi?" he asked.

"I could ask you the same question," was the reply. Kakashi moved forward, closer to the stone.

The two stood in silence with each other for a long while. A soft breeze blew through the trees, sounding like rain and ruffling the grass. Both in two separate universes, but here, in this moment, very close together.

Two completely different men, bonded by the least likely of things: death.

_Bonds,_ Iruka thought bitterly. _Without them life would be easier._ He looked up at the full moon in the sky peering out from behind the clouds, the wind brushing against his face.

_No... not easier. Harder. Lonelier._

Iruka knew what it was like to be forgotten, alone. And, despite how much would be taken away, how many people he would lost, he could never go back to being alone and not caring.

That's why he was passed aside as an simple academy instructor. Because Iruka cared too much- about the wrong things. About life. About death. About a person.

Iruka was used to the pain. Whether it was the pain of being alone, or the pain of losing a piece of you... in the end, it boiled down to be the same thing. Pain is pain, after all.

He shifted as the wind picked up even more. Kakashi remained unmoving, not about to let a little bit of wind blow him around.

It was different, sharing the memorial stone with someone else. Kakashi almost felt envy at the fact that it wasn't just him there. His spot. His place. His memories. All here, all bound by the same thing.

The sky turned darker and darker, only a few stars daring to shine through the thick clouds. In silence, the two parted ways, heading for home.

#

Behind closed doors, no one can hear, no one can see. Everything waits until the lights go out, until the last strand of the sun is gone. And then it happens.

The world comes rushing in, all at once. Invading his thoughts. What he should have done, what he could have done, and what he cannot change.

No one sees the silent tears that fall. He's breaking, slowly.

Morning comes. He's okay. At least, he hopes so. Last night was just a dream, just a phase. It's okay.

The fake laughs, the fake smiles. More memories being made.

But at night, they all go away. At night, you die a little more.

Iruka couldn't hope to understand what was wrong. He was fine, wasn't he? Fine, fine, fine. After all, he had people, still. Anko. Kotetsu. Izumo.

Maybe.

At night, there is no one else except yourself.

What's worse than being alone is being loved, by people. Being needed. And then watching them die, one by one.

That's when you realize they didn't need you as much as you needed them.

You are useless now. A burden.

It's what breaks us all eventually.

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... Yeah. Should get away from the Emo stuff, but I love it too much. You should see me at my computer, maniacally typing away. Minus the evil laugh, I haven't perfected it yet. :)

Liked it? Loved it? Hated it? Needs improvement? Please tell me! :D v


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